In October, I was grabbed by a headline on a column by Margaret
Sullivan, who writes about media issues for the Washington Post:
“The planet is on a fast path to destruction. The media must cover
this like it’s the only story that matters.” See
Water Ways, Oct. 23.
Margaret Sullivan
Photo: Michael Benabib
As I wrote in my blog post, “Climate change is not a subject
that generates happy news. It is not a subject that most
politicians wish to address in any form, but it is one subject that
separates those who care about the future of the planet from those
who care only about short-term economic benefits or political
gains.”
Nearly every time I write about climate change, someone reaches
out to me to ask that I keep telling the climate story in my blog.
I do a lot of reading about water-related issues, of course, and I
am constantly learning about climate change — from detailed studies
by scientists to government plans to address a future with greater
floods, larger forest fires and extensive loss of marine life.
I have decided this year to share some of the more fascinating,
ground-breaking or inspiring reports that I come across during my
reading. I may provide just a link to an article or scientific
report with a brief commentary, as opposed to a full-blown
discussion. I’m going to label these brief references “Climate
Sense” — as in the headline on this blog post. I hope we can all
become better informed about this issue so vital to the future of
humanity. (As always, one can subscribe to this blog in the column
to the right.)
Climate change will likely emerge as one of the top five issues
facing the Washington Legislature next year, predicts state Sen.
Christine Rolfes of Bainbridge Island, a key leader in the state
Senate.
Sen. Christine
Rolfes
The issue is not going away, she told me, despite (or perhaps I
because of) voter rejection of a billion-dollar climate change
initiative on last week’s ballot.
“If you are in elective office and you are aware of threats to
the climate and the future of the state, there is a moral
imperative to do something,” she said, “even though this particular
proposal didn’t pass.”
Still on the table are a multitude of ideas for clean power,
cleaner transportation and greater energy efficiency, she explained
as we sat down to coffee on Monday at a Bainbridge Island
establishment.
The overwhelming vote against Initiative 1631 was not a vote
against taking action on climate change, according to Sen. Rolfes.
It was a message that voters want to take action in a different
way. As chairwoman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, with its
special focus on budget issues, she will play a key role in the
passage of any climate-change measures. See
Kitsap Sun, Jan. 6, 2018.
Some people are always going to vote against taxes, she noted,
but the swing votes were from people concerned about the huge
amounts of money involved, the so-called “loopholes” regarding who
would pay the tax, or the uncertainties over how the money would be
spent.
Two members of the Washington’s congressional delegation — Reps.
Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor, and Dave Reichert, R-Auburn — are
expressing confidence that the Land and Water Conservation Fund
will be reauthorized.
But with so many dollars on the line for conservation purposes,
many supporters are growing nervous about when it will happen and
what the final bill will look like. After all, what could possibly
go wrong in a Congress famous for getting nothing done, with less
than 100 days left to go before the law expires?
The Land and Water Conservation Fund is a major source of money
for recreation and habitat-protection projects across the country,
ranging from building local swimming pools to buying land for
national parks. Since 1965, more than 41,000 grants have provided a
total of about $4 billion, divided among every state and five U.S.
territories. For a list of completed projects in Washington state,
check out “50 Years of
Success” by the Washington Wildlife and Recreation
Coalition.
The Land and Water Conservation
Fund receives $900 million a year, about halfway up the lowest
line. The short bars show spending, compared to revenues from
drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf. (Click to enlarge)
Graph:LWCF Coalition
The current law places $900 million a year into the fund, but in
recent years only a fraction of that ever gets appropriated —
roughly between one-fourth and one-half. If not appropriated, the
money disappears into the general Treasury for other spending.
Revenues put into the fund come from royalties paid by energy
companies for drilling for oil on the outer continental shelf, so
no tax dollars are involved. As President Obama and others have
stated, the program allows money coming from the extraction of
natural resources to go into protecting natural resources.
In a conference call yesterday, Kilmer recounted how the fund
has helped bring businesses to Washington state, as employers look
for places with natural beauty and recreational opportunities. He
noted that in his previous life he worked for the Pierce County
Economic Development Board helping employers site their
businesses.
“Just like in real estate, location matters,” Kilmer said.
“Access to natural beauty matters. Something our region has is a
natural environment that you won’t find anywhere else, and
innovators and employers are attracted to the Pacific
Northwest.”
Kilmer said it is “hard to overstate the importance” of the Land
and Water Conservation Fund. He promised to work hard to have it
permanently authorized.
Reichert delivered a similar message, saying he helped gather
signatures in support from more than 200 representatives from both
parties.
“I want to reassure everyone… we are going to continue to fight
this fight back here,” he said. “We think it is absolutely critical
to invest in the LWCF … and support public land conservation
efforts.”
I did not get a clear picture of how the political battles are
shaping up, nor whether reauthorization is likely before the fund
expires at the end of September. But we can get some clues from
remarks by key leaders in the House and Senate, as well as
testimony in public hearings.
At one end of the spectrum, Washington’s Sen. Maria Cantwell has
proposed legislation, S. 890,
that would not only reauthorize the law but require permanent and
dedicated funding at the full amount of authorization. If Congress
fails to appropriate the funds, presumably the money would stay in
the fund unless redirected to another program.
Separate bills in the Senate and House (S.
338 and H.R.
1814) would not go as far. They would make the fund permanent
but would not change the appropriation process. A provision would
be added to the law to require that 1.5 percent of the
appropriation, up to $10 million, would be set aside for opening up
public access to recreation.
In the Senate, an amendment to the Keystone XL pipeline bill,
which would do what S. 338 proposes, nearly passed with 59 votes,
one vote shy of the required 60 votes to pass in today’s Senate.
That is seen as decent support in the Senate, but nobody is
predicting what will happen in the House.
Republicans, who are in control of the committees, could shape
any bills that they decide to bring to a vote and move to
floor.
Rep. Tom McClintock, a Republican from California, chairs the
Subcommittee on Federal Lands Oversight of the House Natural
Resources Committee.
“This 50-year old act expires in September, offering the 114th
Congress an opportunity to thoroughly examine its mission and
impacts and to make adjustments accordingly,” McClintock said in a
hearing in April on the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
McClintock raised objections about buying more federal land when
there is a serious backlog of maintenance projects needed to meet
standards for fire prevention, fire suppression, wildlife
management and facilities maintenance. Money that goes to states,
on the other hand, comes under greater accountability because of
the funding match provided at the local level, he said.
The funding is entirely discretionary, he noted, so it is
“incumbent upon Congress” to decide whether to support additional
funding for the purchase of federal lands.
Similar views were expressed by Alaskan Sen. Lisa Murkowski,
Republican chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural
Resources.
“I fully support reauthorizing this act, this year, in a way
that reflects changing needs and evolving viewpoints about
conservation in the 21st century,” Murkowski said during a
hearing in April.
“As we look to reauthorize LWCF, I believe that it makes sense
to shift the federal focus away from land acquisition, particularly
in Western states, toward maintaining and enhancing the
accessibility and quality of the resources that we have,” she said.
“This is the best way to put our nation’s recreation system on the
path of long-term viability.”
She stressed her support for state programs and for increasing
public access to federal lands.
In that same hearing, Washington’s Sen. Maria Cantwell, the
Democrats’ ranking minority member on the committee, said it is not
necessary to choose between maintenance and purchase. Maintenance
is already authorized, she said, and Congress decides how much to
spend on maintenance.
“Nearly half of the National Park Service’s estimated backlog is
attributed to needed repairs for roads and highways within the
national parks,” she said. “The single biggest improvement we could
make in reducing the maintenance backlog would be to increase the
funding level in the transportation bill for park roads.”
The Land and Water Conservation Fund is flexible, she argued. It
provides money for states to buy and develop local recreation
projects and to protect habitat for endangered species.
The fund also provides money for the Forest Legacy Program to
purchase development rights from private timberland owners to keep
the property in a forest condition.
On that point, more than 2,100 acres of forestland adjacent to
both Green Mountain and Tahuya state forests in Kitsap and Mason
counties were protected from development in 2009 with a $3.3
million purchase of development rights from Pope Resources. See
Kitsap Sun, Aug. 12, 2009.
In the latest round of funding, an effort is moving forward to
protect 20,000 acres of forestland between Shelton and Allyn in
Mason County. The plan is to take up to 10 years to buy the
development rights from Green Diamond Resource Company, which will
continue to manage the land under a federally approved habitat
conservation plan.
As for extra money for state projects, Cantwell pointed out that
a relatively new program, the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act,
provides a dedicated source of funding for state grants. Money from
drilling in the Gulf of Mexico places up to $125 million a year in
the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
In a column published by the
Kitsap Sun, Washington State Sen. Christine Rolfes,
D-Bainbridge Island, said the Land and Water Conservation Fund is
important for protecting public property in every corner of the
state, including a land purchase to improve degraded water quality
in Lake Quinault near the coast.
Rolfes said she worries that in this “highly charged political
climate,” opponents of public lands could block spending from the
fund by failing to authorize its renewal.
“If they succeed,” she said, “the loss won’t be abstract — it
will be real and immediate.”
The video below, produced by The Nature Conservancy, makes an
argument for continuing the purchase and protection of public
lands.
Rolfes was praised for her deft legislative work in this year’s
session and “for being one of the state’s strongest environmental
leaders,” according to a statement from the political
organization.
Christine
Rolfes
“In the Senate, Sen. Rolfes fought for real action to protect
Puget Sound and the public from the threat of dangerous and
increasing oil traffic in our state,” said Joan Crooks, CEO of
Washington Conservation Voters, in the news release. “She proved
time and again that she is an effective champion who isn’t afraid
to take on industry and the Big Oil lobby to protect our
environment and communities.”
Rolfes was recognized for submitting and promoting legislation
designed to improve the safety of oil transport in and around Puget
Sound. See
Senate Bill 6262, the “Oil Transportation Safety Act” — one of
only two priorities put forth this year from the Environmental
Priorities Coalition.
The bill was blocked by legislative leaders in the Senate in
favor of a bill proposed by the oil industry, Crooks said.
“In the 2014 Senate’s most dramatic moment on the floor, Sen.
Rolfes skillfully used a rare procedural motion to set the industry
bill aside,” stated the news release. “Her leadership resulted in
the bill’s eventual demise; it was a deft and dramatic maneuver for
this environmental champion.”
Rolfes’ predecessor in the Senate from the 23th District, Phil
Rockefeller, also from Bainbridge Island, was named
Legislator of the Year by WCV in 2007. That’s the year he
served as chief architect of the bill to create the Puget Sound
Partnership and pushed through the legislation. The partnership has
since taken on the role of coordinating the restoration of Puget
Sound. Rockefeller left the Senate when he was appointed to the
Northwest Power
& Conservation Council in July 2011.
Washington state lawmakers have approved legislation that
strengthens the hand of the Washington Department of Ecology, as
the agency continues to beef up the state’s oil-spill response
capabilities. See reporter John Stang’s story in
today’s Kitsap Sun.
Some of the specific requirements were stripped out of the
original bill introduced back in January by Rep. Christine Rolfes,
D-Bainbridge Island. You may wish to review my initial blog entry
in
Water Ways Jan. 13. In place of detailed requirements, Ecology
was given a strong hand to decide what kinds of equipment are
needed for each area of the state, including Puget Sound.
In that sense, Rolfes’ initial goals for the legislation remain
in place:
When I wrote my recent
progress report on the Puget Sound Partnership, my story
included little more than brief quotes and snippits of information
from a variety of informed people. It is somewhat rewarding to have
a blog where I can bring you more complete impressions of the
people I interviewed. Here is the fifth in a series of expanded
reports from those interviews.
Puget Sound may be suffering ecologically at this point in
history, but the Puget Sound Partnership would do best by
explaining in a positive way how things can be improved, said state
Rep. Christine Rolfes, D-Bainbridge Island.
“Don’t spend your time trying to bum people out,” she told me
when I asked her to offer some advice to the partnership. “Focus on
bringing people together to make it better. We all want more fish,
more birds, more parks. How do we engage people to make it happen?
I would say to them, ‘stay creative, stay positive and think
local.’”
During last year’s oil blow-out in the Gulf of Mexico, I kept
thinking about our home waters of Puget Sound.
I kept hearing reports about the conflicts and confusion among
the state, federal and local governments operating in the region. I
am fairly convinced that intergovernmental cooperation would be
better in Washington state, because I have seen representatives of
numerous agencies working together on blue-ribbon panels,
high-level committees, contingency-planning efforts and oil-spill
drills.
One big question that remains controversial is whether this
state has enough of the right kinds of oil-spill response equipment
in the right places.
On Tuesday, state Rep. Christine Rolfes, a Democrat from
Bainbridge Island, announced legislation to address this issue. She
offered her legislative proposal as the National Commission on the
BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill released its final recommendations
about what went wrong in the Gulf and what should be done to
improve deep-water drilling and oil-spill responses. Continue reading →